Live Football

Depositing To Bookmakers

I’ve been getting a few requests lately for more information about how I trade the Over/Under 2.5 goals market pre match. So in order to save time I will answer the most common questions I get, here in this blog post.

When I was in full practise mode, I just used £10.00 to £20.00. When I decided to start it properly, I put £100.00 in my Betfair account and used the full amount to trade.

I only trade with roughly 75% of my betting bank these days. This is just in case Betfair crashes mid trade. If this was to happen there is a possibility that I could have all my account on Under 2.5 goals, waiting to trade Over 2.5 goals. If Betfair couldn’t fix the problem for a couple of hours and the match ends 2-1, I’m doomed. So for this reason, I tend to only use 75% these days.

It is my intention to build up my account percentage wise every week. My next target amount is £1000.00, which I don’t believe is unobtainable (my first target was to double my betting bank to £200.00).

How Do I Select The Matches I Trade?

It’s hard to give a definitive answer as it varies so much. I honestly don’t have any special formula for selecting a match (which is making me think this method can be used on any game).

What I do look for though, is a particular market. I tend to look for markets with a few hundred pounds floating around in them, rather than £25K (for example). This is because I am only trading with a couple of hundred quid at the moment.

If I was trading with two or three grand, these markets probably wouldn’t work for me (I don’t know for definite as I’ve never traded that amount using this method).

For example, if I was trading a live English Premier League game on Sky, I would look to start trading it a few hours before kick off…. or even the night before with the 12.45pm Saturday kick off’s. What I look to do is be in and out before the big money arrives.

If I wait until an hour before kick off, there is simply too much money in the market and my couple of hundred quid just gets lost in the queue and it can take ages to get matched. And if a trade is going against me, it can be very difficult to get out of my position.

I may also look for a more obscure game with a few gaps in the market, and look to expose the gaps. By this I mean, Over 2.5 goals might be 1.71 to back and 1.76 to lay, meaning a large gap between the prices that could be filled. A live English lower league match or a live European fixture might have opportunities like this a couple of hours before kick off.

So in short, there is no particular match I may look for, it is more a particular market (as described above).

How Much Time Do I Spend Trading?

Again, there is no definitive answer.

This is a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string question,’ it really depends on the individual. It’s down to how many games you trade, and how much time and effort you want to put in to it.

I sometimes do one game in an evening and I can be done in 10 minutes. While I sometimes spend most of Saturday afternoon and evening in front of my PC.

On some occasions I might monitor a market for a while before getting involved, or I may first do a bit of homework by looking at previous matches to see how many goals were scored, to try and get a view of a teams form and hopefully give myself a head’s up of how the market might behave ……and on other occasions I just dive straight into a trade without any thought or research at all.

Using either method, sometimes I win, and sometimes lose. Could I make more profit if I did more research? I don’t know, maybe I could.

Either way, I believe it is a simple case of you get out, what you put in.

How Long Before A Match Kicks Off Do I Trade?

I partly covered this in the answer I gave to the question ‘How Do I Select The Matches I Trade.’ These days I like to be out of a trade about 45 minutes to an hour before a match kicks off. When I start trading varies, it is usually when there is a few hundred quid in the market, or a gap in the market that I feel I can profit from. Again, there is no hard and fast rule here.

What Markets Do I Trade In?

I predominately trade the Over/Under 2.5 goals market, and sometimes the outright Match Odds market. There is the odd exception to this though, as occasionally I may move into the Over/Under 3.5 goals markets when the odds on Over 2.5 goals is too low. This only usually happens in Barcelona, Real Madrid matches, or some Dutch or Icelandic league games, etc.

How Do I know Which Way A Market Will Move?

Simple answer is, I don’t.

All I know is that if a price is disappearing in front of my eyes (that’s why watching a market for 10-15 minutes before getting involved helps) that this is (probably) the way the market is moving. The problem is that I could watch a price disappear, assume the market is moving that way, get involved on the back of this – and then watch as it does the exact opposite to what I thought it was going to do.

Quite often though, the market will shift a tick or two one way, and then shift a tick or two back the other way. Or it will just shift a tick one way and then the other. All I do is try and be on the right side of these one tick shifts, sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. The results suggest I get it right more often than not.

And Finally

There is a professional Pre Match Trading service which can predict the way certain markets will move. I have found this service is a great help in teaching me to understand the markets, and I would recommend anyone who is serious about trading pre match, gives this service a try for at least a month.

Based on the Outright Match Winner and Over/Under 2.5 goals markets, the Pre Match Trading software can predict misalignments in the Correct Score market (for a 2-1, 2-0 scoreline, etc), and the other Over/Unders markets. This sort of advice, and the experience and helpful tips you will pick up from using this service is invaluable.

Like with all methods of football gambling or trading, plenty of discipline is needed.

I hope this goes some way to explaining how I do things. Please feel free to leave a comments and opinions.

To start with I would just practise with £10 to £20, that’s how I started. Put a back up in a market one tick above the current price, ie, if it is 2.00 to back Over 2.5 goals, then put a back bet up at 2.02 and wait and see if it gets matched.

If/when it does, put a lay up at 2.00 and see if that gets matched.

If the price starts going the wrong way after your first bet has been matched, then trade out as soon as possible and either start the process again, or move onto another match. (I’ve still not worked out what the best thing to do there is, either).

Just keep doing this for a while to get a feel of how the market moves. Aim to make 0.5%-1% of your bank per a trade, don’t be greedy. If you are starting with £10, then try to make 5 to 10p. I know it’s not a lot, but I trade on percentages, not the amount of money. And 1% is an ok return in this game – as long as you are making 1% often enough that is..

Once you feel comfortable with that, move onto a larger betting bank if you wish. Remember, whatever amount you start with, don’t panic, as unless you forget you’ve placed a trade, you can’t lose it all. You should only really lose 3 to 5% of bank a bank max, unless you do something really stupid… like don’t trade out pre kick off.